But of course we all know that the big manufacturers don’t do this not because they can’t but because they don’t want to. Planned obsolescence is still very much the name of the game, despite all the bullshit they spout about sustainability.
There are indeed good aspects to this product.
But I won’t join the “Fairphone good” circle jerk and give them the free publicity, because just like Apple and Samsung, they removed the headphone jack from their phones soon before the launch of these headphones, in other words, artificially creating the problem and need to sell you their expensive solution.
You don’t get to ride the “we are pro customer!” free publicity train while also wanting to be the next Apple.
They explain very thoroughly on their website why they did it:
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/9836188988049-Audio-Jack-3-5mm
Yep, same excuses as Apple.
Analogue connector too old, too big, hard to make modular. All proven false by a multitude of other devices.
It might be false, but I think the real reason is that very few people care about a jackstick… I care, but I’m the only one I know, and I only ever hear a small group of people online talk about it being a big deal. In the end I don’t think too badly about that specific decision from any phone manufacturer.
Heck, I don’t even care about having an audio jack as long as there are two USB-C ports. I’m a down for a unified connector. There just needs to be enough ports for it.
I bought the Fairphone 5 and yeah, I miss not having the jack and I see no reason to take it out
Cost. The Fairphone is already too expensive for what it offers.
What I don’t get is how no company seems to have worked out a legitimately good service and maintenance model for tech products. Fairphone hasn’t invented the wheel here. They’re going to make money on maintenance, parts and repair.
I would think there would be lowered costs involved in not having to push out a new product every 6 months and market it to customers who just bought something less than a year ago.
The business models of the current tech giants are very much based on planned obsolescence. Selling you a gadget for $ 1000 every two years will always be more profitable than selling you one very five years and doing service in the meantime.
The service and maintenance model is largely “replace it”.
Everyone looks to a desktop computer where you swap out a stick of ram or whatever. But the real key is to look at laptops. Yes, a LOT of vendors solder the god damned ram in place and so forth which is bullshit. But repairs are generally less “okay, let me re-solder this one connection” since that connection is a via that is embedded in a circuitboard. So it becomes “let’s replace that board”. And yes, efforts can be made to split up the board more but you lose latency savings and increase the complexity of the boards because you now need to add connection points and so forth.
And then you look at earbuds where… do you even have room for connectors like that? Near as I can tell, Fairbuds let you replace a few pieces of plastic, the rubber earplugs, the in-bud battery, and the charger (possibly just the battery?). That is definitely a step in the right direction but it also becomes a question of how much that even matters. In particular, I am wary of the value-add of the internal batteries since charging a lithium battery is largely “solved” and these have an external controller (the case) that can preserve the battery.
While I think we can do better in some spaces, the reality is that a lot of modern tech is fundamentally un-repairable. Not because of evil conspiracies but just because it is a lot easier to print a PCB and slot in some components than it is to connect vacuum tube diodes. And when so many of those components are fairly complex chips and the damage is less “oh, the metal prong on this chip broke” and more “oh, the via shorted out”?
Stuff like the fairbuds just seem… real stupid to me. Fairphone level “replace and repair” is kind of borderline but I think is generally good. And while I have series issues with how Framework does it and the resulting e-waste, I love the ethos of their laptops.
But We need to pick and choose our battles to be ones that make sense. Will Smith’s Tested’s Adam Savage just uploaded a video where he gushed about how easy it was to repair a kitchenaid mixer and that is an AWESOME video. That is the kind of repairs that people can meaningfully make. Using an x-ray machine to detect a possible short in a chip and hoping that was the only short… is not.
And in those cases? We need strong warranties AND strong e-waste recycling programs and incentives. Electronics are increasingly disposable for good and bad reasons. The junk drawer full of old phones and swelling batteries is bad.
I am wary of the value-add of the internal batteries since charging a lithium battery is largely “solved” and these have an external controller (the case) that can preserve the battery.
Li-ion batteries wear out with normal use, or even sitting on a shelf fully charged. I suspect the battery is the primary reason most devices with onboard charging become unusable over time, and ensuring that it is user-replaceable will greatly increase average service life.
The wear and tear is greatly exaggerated (more specifically, it is based on older tech and before we had chargers that cycled correctly) and the technology (bluetooth has made leaps and bounds the past few years) is likely to be outdated long before the battery fails.
It is one of those things that I want on principle but very much question the value of. And considering that this is a zero sum game where the time and cost of the replaceable battery comes from somewhere else (in the case of cost: the consumer’s pocket because holy crap these are expensive…).
My Sony linkbuds S only last two hours now. It’s a product from 2022. When did they solve batteries? Because it wasn’t in 2022
The product in question is not outdated because they rolled out updates for the new features, like Bluetooth LE audio
Honestly? it sounds like you bought a stinker then. Because I have some (I forget if they are anker or jabra) earbuds that are MAYBE a few minutes off of what they were when I got them before the pandemic (so 2019/2020).
The costs (overhead) are too high. They make more by simply manufacturing and selling.
Otherwise they’d be doing it.
I’m wondering about that. I’ve worked with several manufacturers, and their most profitable segment is parts. If you ever want to get the highest annual bonus, work for the parts devision.
I wish all their stuff wasn’t EU only.
I’d rather they just give me a headphone jack tbh
Am I the only one that can’t stand the few hundred millisecond delay of Bluetooth audio?
Not at all! It drives me nuts. I’ve tried watching movies with Bluetooth headphones on, so as not to bug my wife at night, and it just feels off. Almost like watching old subtitled movies. I checked it out and my headphones have a ~250ms response time. My car’s system literally has a nearly two second delay and I can’t take it.
fuck wireless headphones! I don’t want to remember charging another god damn thing to start with.
I’m right there with ya. I know many people prefer wireless earbuds, but I like ripping cables out of my ears at random. Makes me feel alive.
This. I hate to charge my headphones everyday
My sony ones survive more than a week.
that isn’t the typical experience though, and letting your batteries drain completely is bad for them. also if you don’t have some sort of routine, a lot of people (myself included) end up forgetting to charge them and end up with no working headphones until they can charge them again, which is pretty annoying.
Idk bro I have a cheap ~40 dollar pair of Chinese wirless earbuds called tozo nc9 (t12s were also a good option iirc) and you’d be surprised how good of a product you can get for cheap these days.
Several hour charge hold, over 48 hours of listening time with the case, noise canceling, better sound quality than most of the bass boosted budget junk put out by American companies.
I mean wired headphones are great too, but at this point it’s become at least reasonable to get a pair of wireless.
I have mpows that cost 60$ and pixel bud pros that cost a lot more. If I didn’t know the price of either I’d say the mpows were within 40$ of the pixel buds pro in terms of quality. The ANC works well. They last longer. But their mic is not great and they don’t have the fluffy quality of life stuff the pixels have.
Yes, I get it. I would still use wired headphones, but I got bluetooth ones as a gift. And to add to your critisism, batteries die and you have to replace them around every 10 years.
I haven’t had wired headphones last me more than a year. One bad snag on a cable any they’re done. 10 years is a long time.
Meh.
Overpriced.
I can buy 3 or 4 pairs of BT5 earphones for the price of these.
My most expensive pair currently was $75.
I’ve never had batteries go bad in them - they get broken well before that happens. Though I have a noise canceling headset from 2006 that still works. Battery lasts long enough.
I’d rather break a pair of $30 earphones, and have multiple spares than a single pair of $150.
And they all sound about the same given the source and environment.
Overpriced.
their entire premise is making sure that people on the supply chain of their devices are compensated adequately (hence the “Fair” in the name), which is why their products are more expensive than you’re used to.
It’s called feel-good marketing. Similar to organic veggies or ethical coffee from Starbucks.
I don’t know about Starbucks or Big Organic Veggie, but Fairphone publishes annual reports on sustainability and life quality of their workers.
Nothing’s fair with FP when they can’t give the option of a jack. So much for caring about the environment
